It's late July.  You're watching your small market baseball team, in this case the Pittsburgh Pirates, lose another game.  The only bright spot of today's 8-2 loss is that Xavier Nady and Jason Bay each hit homers.  This is great news.  You have known since the start of Spring Training that your team had no shot to compete this season.  What you are cheering for now is the future.  You are cheering for Jason Bay and Xavier Nady to go on hot streaks, which will allow the Pirates to deal both players and potentially bring you a top hitting prospect thatwill be under the team's control for longer than Nady and Bay would have been here.

July 31st comes.  Bay and Nady continued their hot streaks, and today is the day for a trade.  You sit watching the trades fly by as they are announced.  Suddenly, you hear that the Pirates made a deal.  Then you hear that Bay and Nady were shipped off together for a top prospect.  This must be the trade you were waiting for.  This will bring you a solid third base prospect like Chase Headley or Ian Stewart.  This will be the key to the future success of the Pirates.

The details of the deal finally come in, and you're shocked to find that the top prospect is a shortstop at AA.  You fail to see how this deal helps your team, especially when shortstop is not an area of need.  You entered this season with the smallest of hope for a chance to compete, and from May to the end of July your hopes were placed on the possibility that your team could see a major upgrade at the trade deadline, setting you up for a solid year next season.  Now that those hopes have been shattered, what do you have left to cheer for?

The fans of big market teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, or Cubs have something to cheer for during the regular season.  Even when their teams are struggling, the talent on those teams keeps hope alive.  Currently the Yankees are 20-24, the Pirates are 21-23, the Nationals are 20-26, the Royals are 21-23, and the Rays are 26-19.  Which team do you think has the best shot at making the playoffs?  Even with the 26-19 start by the Rays, I still would have to take the Yankees.

A lot of the time fantasy baseball gets a knock against it for not being true to the game.  It sometimes forces you to cheer against your real life team, like when your first round pick, Albert Pujols, homers twice against your Pirates.  Some say this is not being a true fan.  If you ask me, unless you are a fan of one of the big market teams, there is no use being a true fan.

I have been a true Pirates fan my whole life.  The last 15 years they have lost.  The last seven years I have seen them make some of the worst moves in the history of sports, some of which I outline in this post.  I've seen many Pirates fans with hopes of what their team will do, similar to my scenario above.  When the team does not follow the same course, it brings that feeling that many small market fans know all too well:  I wish I wasn't a Pirates fan.

Knowing this information, I ask you, what is the problem with fantasy sports?  Over the past few years I have cared less when the Pirates lost, as long as my fantasy team wins.  Some may sneer at cheering for various players around the league.  Some may scoff at the fact that my favorite players are Hanley Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, and David Wright.  You might be in for a shock when you realize that I stream pitchers against my very own Pirates.  Is this being a bad fan, or is this being a reasonable fan?

Let me give you the choice of two teams to root for:

The first team doesn't care about winning.  The only thing this team cares about is profit.  Winning would be a nice after-thought, but only if the team is in the black.  The team constantly trades away your favorite players, and never gets back the players you want.  If there is a free agent pitcher you want, you know that he will never be on your team, because the $15 million price tag is way too high.  You spend hours thinking about how the team would operate if you were in control, thinking of every decision from the lineup, to the minor league system, to free agents and trades.

The second team is set up with one purpose:  winning.  The only profit that could be made is by winning.  You have total control over this team.  You draft only the players you want on your team.  If there is a player you wanted, but you couldn't draft, you can trade for that player.  You can, in some way or another, ensure that your team is loaded with all of your favorite players.  You will never be disappointed by a trade because you made the deal, and you got back the players you wanted in return.  If there is a free agent pitcher you like, you can sign him to your team, without thinking about his major league salary.  If a player is performing poorly, you can bench him, without worrying about how the player will take the new assignment.  The best part is that you have all of this control, and you don't have to be a billionaire to run this team.

If you ask me, I'm taking team two every time.  The end result is that you are following the game of baseball, and you are following one team in particular.  The difference is that the first team cares nothing about you, you have no control over it, and cheering for them is never rewarding.  The second team is your personal team, one that you control, and cheering for them is always rewarding.

People may say that fantasy baseball ruins the integrity of the game.  They may say that it is wrong for a Pirates fan to cheer for anyone who is not wearing a Pirates jersey.  Overall you have to cheer for one team.  If you are going to spend all of that time and effort following a team, living and dying by their every move, then it might as well be a team whose only objective is to provide you with enjoyment, rather than take your money and give you nothing of value in return.  In my opinion, fantasy baseball is the only way to cheer for the game.